


Try It

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:53:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9650480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: Sansa always wondered what it would be like to kiss someone, someone like the handsome and valiant knights in the stories and songs and games she loved. Jon was no knight, but he was kind and rather fair in his own right, so who better to try it with than him?





	1. Chapter 1

“You only turn seven and ten once,” Theon said, inviting Sansa and Jeyne Poole to join him, Robb and Jon, and some of the squires and stable boys and serving girls in the godswood. He opened the basket on his arm to show her the wine and ale and food he pinched from the kitchens after Robb’s nameday feast. 

Sansa thought it was a rather poor way to celebrate turning seventeen, and she only agreed after Jeyne begged to go since Henry, Mikken’s new apprentice blacksmith that she had her eye on, was attending. 

She didn’t know why Jeyne had insisted Sansa come along anyway, considering the second they arrived beside the weirwood tree, she left to go sit on the other side of the pool by Henry. Sansa instead chose a spot between Jon and Robb—on one side, she knew Robb would protect her lest Theon or any of the other boys become too friendly, and on the other, Jon wouldn’t say a word.

Dangling her feet in the steaming water, Sansa lifted her skirts out of the way. Most of the girls had taken theirs off, remaining only in their shifts, but that didn’t seem proper. The night air had started to come with a bit of a chill too, and she found herself grateful for the wine in her hand that warmed her with each sip. 

She tried not to stare at Jeyne and Henry, wondering what they seemed to have so much to talk about, while simultaneously striving to ignore the conversation taking place between Robb and Louisa, a blonde handmaid who had the largest breasts Sansa had ever seen, on his other side. She fought the urge to roll her eyes when Louisa cooed at Robb’s boasting of how he’d outridden Jon, Theon, and even his father yesterday on their gallop through the woods. How did these girls not realize that Robb, future lord or not, was just as stupid and childish as all the other boys in Winterfell? 

A great splash went up as Theon launched himself across the pool, followed by the squeal of a girl as a thin as a rail with a thick mane of dark, curly hair down her back who jumped out of his reach onto the bank. 

“I saw you looking,” Theon called after her. “You can touch.” 

She giggled. “Touch _what_ , Mr. Greyjoy?” 

“I’ll show you what.” Sansa averted her eyes from his damp smallclothes as Theon hauled himself out of the water, grabbed the girl’s hand, and disappeared into the darkness amidst her laughter. 

Theon’s absconding seemed to create a ripple of exits, starting with the two who sat beside Jon running off in the woods, chasing each other, the kennelmaster’s assistant and one of the pot girls from the kitchens slinking away next, and Tom the stable boy returning to the yard to do a night check on the steeds. Henry offered to walk Jeyne back to the keep, and Robb muttered, “D’you want to go for a walk?” as his face turned red and Louisa agreed to his invitation with overabundant enthusiasm, until only Sansa was left beside Jon. 

Jon sipped his ale in silence. She could have gone inside, but it seemed rude to leave him there alone, so instead Sansa cast around for something to say. 

“Do you drink that often?” she asked. _What a stupid question._

Jon took it, though. “No,” he said, staring into the bottom of his cup. “Don’t care much for the taste.”

“I’ve never had it,” she admitted. “Is it that terrible?”

“Do you want to try it?” He held it out to her. 

Sansa took the cup from him. It smelled strange, but it couldn’t taste nearly that bad, considering almost all of the flagons Theon brought out were finished. She tilted the glass and let the ale dribble onto her tongue, the heavy, bitter flavor overwhelming her. She forced herself to swallow before she spat it down her dress and immediately followed it up with a gulp of wine. 

Jon chuckled. “See what I mean?” 

“This is much better,” she said, taking another swig of the wine. It was arbor gold; the best and sweetest, brought up from Dorne. She’d had a glass already with dinner at the table of honor, while Jon sat in back, presumably only served ale of the ilk she just tried. She paused before offering her own cup to him. “Do you want to try it?” 

“Sure,” he said, taking a deep drink. He didn’t make the sour face Sansa was sure she must have when trying the ale. “You’re right, that’s certainly more enjoyable.” 

“You can have the rest,” she said, reaching over to one of the abandoned flagons and pouring herself a new, full glass. 

Silence fell, and Sansa struck up a conversation again, if only to protect them from overhearing any of the happenings in the forest. 

“I haven’t been out here in so long,” she said. “Do you remember when we’d always play here, under the tree?”

Jon nodded. “You always wished to play monsters and maidens.” 

She laughed. “Yes, you were always an excellent kraken or dragon. I’m sorry, though. I know you and Robb always preferred to spar with sticks or skip stones.” 

“It had its moments,” Jon said, and she knew he thought about the time Robb, as the gallant knight, tried to rescue her from high up in a tree and had slipped, fallen, and broken his wrist. She was fairly certain somehow Jon had received the blame from her lady mother for that.

He picked up a flat stone from the bank and tossed it easily across the water’s silent surface. It jumped a few times before disappearing. 

“I was never as good at that as you and Robb,” she said. 

Jon pitched a second one; this time it took an extra jump before it sank. “It’s in the wrist,” he said, picking up another one and again sending it further. He handed the next one to her. “Just try it.” 

She took it from him, inhaled, and released the stone, only to watch it sink immediately with a plop. 

He gave her a new one. “Try to release it quicker.” 

She tried it with similarly dismal results. 

“Try like this,” he said, this time wrapping a hand around her wrist to position her arm a bit lower. His hand was warm, his fingers gentle, and she found herself staring at where they touched instead of listening to his directions. 

When she tried again, to her surprise, the rock skipped once before sinking. 

He pressed another into her palm, and another and another, until she’d finally made one jump twice and they’d run out of flat, toss-able stones. The night returned to silence then, without the soft plunks of the stones and Jon’s praise and her expressions of joy or frustration. 

Sansa drained the rest of the wine in her cup, feeling quite a bit more heated than before. She realized she somehow had never noticed how kind and warm Jon’s eyes were up close. Or maybe that was just his reaction to the ale and wine, she didn’t know. 

“What do you think they’re doing?” Sansa blurted. 

Jon looked shy for a minute before he answered, “Kissing, probably.” 

“Oh… does—does this happen often?” 

Jon shrugged. “Theon, yeah. Robb, sometimes.”

“And what about you?”

Jon shook his head and Sansa felt like she was registering how pretty the thick, dark curls of his hair were for the first time. 

“Not often?” she prompted. Jon had nice lips, or at least they looked pink and soft in the moonlight… 

“Never,” he admitted. 

Sansa always wondered what it would be like to kiss someone, real and true, someone like the handsome and valiant knights in the stories and songs and games she loved. Jon was no knight, but he was kind and rather fair in his own right, so who better to try it with than him? 

Feeling emboldened by the wine, she suggested, very slowly, “We could try it.”

“Try—?” Jon’s face transitioned from confusion to surprise as he realized what she meant. And then a curious expression crossed his face before it rearranged into his usual stern frown. Sansa panicked as she tried to identify it—disgust, disbelief, dismay— until she realized something else entirely. 

She tentatively leaned towards Jon, willing that, despite his admission of inexperience, he somehow knew more than her. She snapped her eyes shut and waited a long, weighty second until she felt Jon’s lips brush lightly over hers. 

It was an odd feeling, but not bad, she decided. He thankfully did not taste of the ale and seemed just as content as she to continue at a leisurely pace, waiting for her to press her lips against his again, letting her open her mouth to him. 

This should have felt more than a little peculiar, she knew, as she accidentally brushed against what she suspected to be Jon’s tongue, or revolting, or terrifying, or any number of negative things, but it was more pleasant than the sweetness of the wine, more soothing than the water lapping at her ankles. She wondered what his hand would feel like on her breast, where she brushed against his arm, or what it would feel like if he slid it beneath her skirt… 

The sound of twigs snapping made Sansa finally break away. 

Robb emerged from the woods, pulling a leaf out of his hair, unaccompanied by Louisa. “Where is everyone?” 

“They’ve run off,” Jon shrugged. She was pleased to notice his lips were considerably ruddier than a few moments ago, or maybe that was just the way he flushed. Either way, she found she liked it. 

Robb glanced back over the dark, silent woods with great reluctance, as though he wished to return to their depths rather than walk back to the keep. “Shall we go in?”

Jon kept a distance as they crossed the yard, and Sansa averted her eyes lest Robb notice anything out of the ordinary. 

“Good night, Jon,” Sansa said, the words somehow weird and wooden as she realized she had likely never bid him such before. “Thank you.” 

He nodded and walked off down the hallway with Robb. 

“What was that about?” she heard Robb ask. 

“Probably for not leaving her alone in the woods like you all,” Jon’s voice drifted. “What were you up to, anyway?” 

She imagined Robb’s face must have turned a shade of scarlet to match Jon’s and smiled.


	2. Chapter 2

There were few things that made Jon Snow nervous anymore. Lady Catelyn’s stares, still, for one. Being called up to Father’s solar to discuss matters of stern importance came in a close second. And last was Sansa now, who had started the night on the opposite side of the chamber but slowly and subtly worked her way over to his side.

Lord Eddard reminded them daily now of impending winter, reminders no one needed. The true cold started creeping in moons ago, beginning with a chill at night, followed by winds that blew the leaves right off the trees, and finally frost clinging to the grounds come each sunrise. 

The cold weather made nights in the godswood or the forest miserable, so instead the eldest Starks and their acquaintances took to the space where lessons with Septa Mordane and Maester Luwin had taken place on the rainy days of their younger years, now unused late when all the younger children had gone to sleep. 

Jon knew it was almost time to turn in himself when Theon left with a whispered word in the ear of the new maid sent in for Lady Catelyn from her sister Lysa in the Vale, closely followed by Jeyne Poole and Henry. Sansa confided in him that Jeyne had been seeing Henry in secret while she told her father she was off spending time practicing needlework and other ladylike pursuits with her friends. Even Robb muttered something about being exhausted, and soon he too was gone, leaving Jon alone save for Sansa. 

He watched Sansa take out the pins in her hair, where Jeyne had been practicing braiding it into an intricate style, and run her hands through the strands until they were free and cascaded over her in long red waves. He always thought Sansa beautiful, but he had contented himself for many, many moons with admiring from afar until Robb’s last nameday in the godswood, when their first kiss had flipped his world upside down. He still wondered why she had chosen him, what made her decide to thaw their relationship after so long, yet he had no answers for his ruminations, only still more questions. 

Over the past year, Sansa had on occasion asked for a kiss, “to try again,” she said, and some of the kisses had grown longer, deeper, bolder, but as much as he enjoyed it, Jon didn’t let that fool him. Outside of their stolen moments, she acted very much like the lady of Winterfell she had been raised to be, far out of reach from someone like him. 

Each time she approached him, he knew he should have denied her because it was wrong, because of honor, because she was merely using him for her own curiosities, but when it came to Sansa, Jon was weak. He couldn’t help the contortions his stomach made when she came near, the way his skin burned when they touched, how the images of her—fiery hair, dancing eyes, her shy smile that had become less and less so—stuck in his mind, replaying later at night, when he was alone. And sometimes in those fantasies they tried other things, too, things Jon was ashamed to admit he desired even to himself… 

He uncrossed his legs and made to stand, certain sitting here alone with Sansa would lead to nothing good. 

“Do you want to stay?” Sansa blurted before he could push off the ground. 

He hesitated, the internal war he always suffered in the presence of Sansa beginning to wage, his mind urging him to avoid temptation this time, his body reluctant to leave. “It’s late.” 

“Just for a bit.” Her blue eyes pled with him, one of her unfair advantages in this game amongst many. “Please?” 

He settled back against the stone wall. “Just for a bit,” he agreed. 

“I saw you training this afternoon,” Sansa said, her voice almost echoing in the empty chamber. 

He nodded. “Ser Rodrik started allowing us to use real steel rather than wood now.” 

“I noticed,” she said. “Is it difficult?” 

He shrugged. The switch to steel had made his shoulder sore, if he was honest, but he wasn’t willing to admit that. “No. Just different.”

“I’m not good at swords and arrows, not like you or Arya,” Sansa murmured, leaning back against the stone wall beside him, her shoulder nearly touching his now. The space that separated them hurt more than the weight of the heavy steel sword of which he had yet to acclimate. 

“Have you ever tried?” he asked, grinning both because he knew she’d find the idea absurd and because the image of her wielding one did strange things to his insides. 

“No, of course not.” She rolled her eyes. “Why would I try anything I’d be rubbish at?” 

“I don’t think you’d be rubbish,” he said. “I can’t imagine you being rubbish at anything.” 

“You don’t know anything,” she said, shaking her head. She held up one section of her hair. “If you think this is bad, you certainly haven’t seen my attempts at braiding my own hair.” 

“I could teach you,” he offered. “About the swords, I mean.” 

She laughed. “And what would my mother think of that? And Septa Mordane? Can you imagine?” 

He could. He did, often. When he found himself thinking of Sansa in his arms, her lips on his, and the torrid rush of yearning would not stop, sometimes he pictured Lady Catelyn’s glare, too furious for words, or the punishment Septa Mordane would decree to shame him, to make him atone for his unnatural sins. His heart usually sank when not even that could chase the inappropriate urges from his mind. He could not even pray for strength and sanity from the old gods in the godswood anymore; the place now only served to arouse him further, the possibilities of what might have happened had Robb not emerged the night they first shared a kiss running through his mind. 

“Shouldn’t a proper lady know how to defend herself?” Jon said. He pictured wrapping himself around Sansa to correct her grip, touching her arm, waist, hip to adjust her stance, murmuring words of encouragement in her ear as she squared off against a faceless opponent… 

“I think the idea is a proper lady need not defend herself when she has others to do so for her,” Sansa said, playing with her hands in her lap. “I’ll stick to knitting and needlework, thank you very much. And I prefer watching, anyway.” 

Jon stored that piece of information away for later, when he would need extra motivation during the hours of grueling training in the yard. When he spoke again, for reasons he cursed and didn’t understand, his voice rumbled, deep and low, “Watch all you like.” 

Her cheeks flushed, and then she continued, “And I like the way you look without your tunic, too.”

He glanced down to where she had placed a hand on his arm, just below his shoulder. Jon knew he should have become accustomed to this by now, her gentle touches and whispered words, but his heart accelerated despite his resolve. 

“I thought maybe I could try…”

Sansa paused and bit her lip, leaving Jon to wonder what she was working up the nerve to ask. It wasn’t like it mattered—he couldn’t imagine denying her anything, if she wanted to shear off his curls, or asked for him to unclothe in the dusting of snow outside, or wished to set him aflame, though he wasn’t entirely convinced he wasn’t already, his skin hot beneath her fingertips.

She moved across his body and undid the laces in the front of his tunic, opening his shirt to reveal his chest and running her hand over the exposed skin. Undone and pushed aside, the neckline of his shirt almost reached his navel, but that still was apparently not enough for her as she slid further south. How was it possible he felt as though his skin became warmer the more she uncovered it? 

He didn’t know why he didn’t stop her, why he let her carry on as she slowly moved downward to the defined lines his abdomen, the result of his many afternoons sparring with Robb and Theon. His muscles jumped under her touch. 

“I especially like this part.” 

“Sansa,” he said, catching her hand in his, feeling her small and warm in his calloused palm. How had they gone from sipping ale and wine in the godswood and skipping stones to all of this? “I don’t know if…”

But her eyes had already drifted lower, to the center seam of his breeches. 

“Can I touch you, Jon? Just to try it.” 

He knew he was going to all seven hells if they existed, that he deserved any horrible fate that were to befall him, but he nodded anyway. He would have taken the name of every one of the seven, all of the old gods, any gods he knew in vain if it meant Sansa wouldn’t stop what she was doing… 

She carefully fit her hand between his legs and cupped his cock. It surged beneath her hand, and he bit his lip to suppress a groan. 

“Oh,” she said, seeming mildly surprised, but she didn’t move her hand away, instead rubbing it more firmly over him. 

He huffed out a breath, certain he would explode if he didn’t let go of something. 

“Is this all right?” 

The fabric hardly seemed to dull her touch, and he forced out of his mind the thought of what it would feel like to have her bare skin on his. His own hand didn’t have this effect on him; why did hers feel so different, so perfect? “Sansa…”

“Does it feel good?” 

His hips betrayed him, arching up against her. Sometimes the others teased Jon about his seeming lack of interest in girls, questioning if he really was a man or not, or if his parts were merely out of order. If only they knew, Jon thought, holding onto the infuriatingly distracting notion to soothe the piercing pleasure that was Sansa’s hand on him, what he did out of sight with the most beautiful girl in all of Winterfell, hell, probably the entire North… 

She pressed her face against his neck, so close he could smell the lavender of her hair, her lips brushing over his naked collarbone. “Is there anything you want to try?” 

He closed her fingers tighter around his length and shifted so her hand could work up and down. She easily caught the rhythm, his cock straining against the laces of his breeches. 

It was too easy to lean over and kiss her the way he had learned to crave, soft and sweet at first, building until she allowed his tongue to lick into her mouth, sliding her own along his. And then his hands were on her, gripping her waist, sliding up the corset shielding her ribs, and he wondered why he hadn’t asked if he could try touching her, too… 

She quickened her movements, and he groaned this time, unable to stifle it any longer. Sansa’s skirts were so close, her legs long, and nearly tangled with his. He could imagine how she would feel beneath the layers of satin and velvet, her skin smooth, her silk smallclothes, the space between her legs warmer and wetter than her mouth, tight around his fingers… 

She toyed with the next set of laces he both prayed and dreaded would come undone, slowly loosening them until they too opened just like his shirt. He felt her search for a way around his smallclothes; for all their whispers and kisses and handholds there had never been anything like this, nothing that made him feel this unhinged, as though he couldn’t contain himself, and that he’d make himself insane if he tried. He steeled himself, preparing to feel her hand on him with nothing in between, and fervently willed himself not to instantly spill like the green boy he was… 

The door banged open. 

“Jon! Sansa!” 

Sansa leapt up before Jon could even register what had happened, blocking Rickon’s view. 

“Rickon!” Sansa turned him around abruptly. “What are you doing out of bed? Mother is going to be furious if she finds out.” 

_About more than just Rickon being up,_ Jon thought, helplessly glancing down at the situation in his lap. 

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “And I heard something strange—noises—did you hear them?”

Sansa shot Jon a look. Theon, possessing a lack of sensible decency, liked to take his paramours to the quiet alcove that happened to share a wall with Rickon and Bran’s room. Not even the rushing water of the hot springs could probably disguise his amorous activities. 

“Everything is fine,” Sansa said, brushing her hands over her dress to straighten it. She glanced back over her shoulder at Jon, her blue eyes wide with disappointment and apology. “I’ll walk you back.”

“And I’ll make sure there aren’t any monsters lurking there,” Jon promised. 

Or at least he would when he could breathe and walk properly again.


	3. Chapter 3

Sansa thought back to the night her and Jon first kissed in the godswood. If she’d thought that was a poor way for Robb to turn seven-and-ten, then this was even worse. Her own seventeenth nameday had passed two days prior with scarcely an acknowledgement, Winterfell instead preoccupied with wedding preparations. 

And now, as she stood by the dais where no fewer than a dozen rounds of stew and pie and roasts had been consumed for dinner, watching Robb and Wynafryd Manderly be shunted out for the bedding, it seemed to have taken a turn for the still yet worse. 

As much as she’d dreamt of the weddings and dancing and feasts she heard about in the songs as a child, Sansa had no desire to join the other women in disrobing her brother or in partaking in the gathering outside his bed chamber, making ribald jokes about what he was engaging in behind the closed door with his new lady wife. 

Jon came to stand alongside her as the boisterous throngs exited the Great Hall. He had grown out his beard in the time since that night they’d first exchanged ale and wine, and although she had worried it would be coarse against her skin when they kissed, she had to admit he was quite comely with it. 

There hadn’t been many opportunities, though, for her to sneak away with him ever since Robb started accepting ravens from the northern lords seeking matches for their daughters six moons ago. When he, with their father and mother’s advisement, chose Wynafryd several months past, Winterfell was instantly set abuzz with planning the festivities. Seamstresses set to work on the formal attire for each member of House Stark, including the embroidered cloak for Robb to throw over Wynafryd’s shoulders, doublets detailed with the direwolf sigil for Lord Eddard and his sons, and the dress of flowing dove grey silk Sansa wore now. The men went about gathering the rest of the harvest, bringing in what was left with the full might of winter looming on the horizon, and Sansa herself helped with the decorations, knitting and stitching blue winter roses to adorn the doors and tables when even those became scarce. 

Her heart filled with guilt whenever she thought about how Jon had been pushed aside in all the bustle, but Sansa made an effort to bring him out of the shadows and onto the dance floor this evening. It had taken some convincing, Jon steadfastly refusing until she pleaded, “Just _try_ it.” He did, and he then spent most of their first, second, and even third dance apologizing for his incompetence and frowning even more than usual as he tried to avoid treading on her toes. 

Despite his ineptitude at performing the simple steps Sansa perfected years before as a child, she parted from Jon with reluctance when asked for dances by the sons of most of the northern lords, the many squires who accompanied the great houses to Winterfell, and even some of their household knights, leaving Jon to watch alone. The fact that they knew the steps by heart and that they whispered compliments of her beauty and grace in her ear didn’t compare to the way Jon benevolently listened to her comments and complaints or laughed with her at the lords who had already drunk themselves into silliness, nor the way Jon’s hands felt warm and welcome around her waist rather than foreign and intrusive. 

She had never given much real thought to Jon’s status as a bastard until tonight, until he’d taken a seat in the back of the hall amongst the stable hands and other servants, until Robb stood to give thanks to every member of their family save Jon, until he received scornful looks each time she took his hand instead of one of the many proffered by the men who held titles or were heirs to the renowned lands and castles of the North. She never truly thought of it as any more than a fairly meaningless title, much as she went formally by “Lady Sansa,” but clearly the others saw differently. What had Jon done to deserve such? What did it matter, really, when she could scarcely tell the difference between him in his fine dress or the sons of lords who bore fancy names, who would inherit wealth beyond comprehension? 

It raised other questions for her, too. Did Jon’s bastard blood explain the way she felt about him now? Was it true what they said, that bastards incited lust and debauchery? What else could account for why what had started as an innocent curiosity had bit by bit devolved into a near obsession, her thoughts consumed by fantasy, her body coveting him? 

But then again, she was certain she had seen Lord Bolton’s bastard in the midst of the feast, too, and she felt nothing of the sort when she’d glanced up from the table of honor and met his cool, unnerving gaze across the room. 

She didn’t know if it was the fact that Jon seemed to have grown a couple of inches over the past year, or that his shoulders had broadened and filled out with added muscle from his training, where he now wore full armor to protect himself from Robb and Theon’s blows, or the way his grey doublet matched his eyes, or the easy smile he gave her every time she finished a dance with some other suitor and came right back to take his hand again, but she found Jon really and truly to be the most handsome man in the Great Hall of Winterfell that evening. 

She had noticed other things about him, too, when she watched Jon out of the corner of her eye. How he spent time after his own exhausting sessions teaching Bran and Rickon, who were still a few years too young to be any more than utterly hapless with even light wooden swords, how he always thanked all the serving girls who brought him food and the stable boys who helped saddle his horses, how he never complained, even when he’d been denied a formal introduction to Wynafryd and the Manderly host as they rode into Winterfell, and therefore had been forced to comply with Lady Leona’s request for more firewood and a fresh bath in her room when she mistook him for a servant. Sansa realized she had all along mistaken his shyness for dullness, his quiet demeanor with an aloof one, and she knew now that there was no one she liked to share her secrets with more, not even Jeyne, nor anyone she could trust when she wished to steal an extra lemon cake from the kitchens or sought to escape from Septa Mordane’s mandated afternoon prayers. 

It was strange to have danced with Jon, to have had his hands on her, to have laced her fingers through his out in the open after months upon months of covert kisses and concealed touches. She had been careful about going to him since Rickon’s interruption near on a year ago now, worried about getting caught, what Jon’s fate would be if they were, and hers too. She sensed now that Robb had found a suitable wife, she would be next, and the thought of leaving her family, leaving Winterfell, leaving Jon struck a chord of dread and unease in her heart. 

As the night wore on, she started to fret about other things, too, now. Would her husband ask after her interests and pursuits without boasting of his accomplishments to no end? Would he not permit her to get in a word edgewise, seeming to prefer to solely receive her praise and admire her than hear from her? Would he say her name with reverence and respect, instead of a sly wink and a grin as many of her might-be suitors who seemed eager to place their hands on her did? Would he be as good-natured as Jon, whose laughs she enjoyed sharing because she knew they never came at her expense, who with she felt comfortable asking anything, trying anything? 

“Poor girl.” Jon seemed to caption the Sansa of her worries, wincing as Theon ripped off the laces that held together Wynafryd’s outer corset. “Taken away from her home and her family, made to marry an unfamiliar man, and now this.” 

“I suppose so,” Sansa shrugged. 

“Do you wish that was you?” he said through a scowl. 

She smirked. “Do I wish I was the one marrying Robb?” 

He huffed. “No, the one being—getting—”

“No, of course not, at least not by those brutes,” she said. She thought it perhaps best not to tell him how she did dream of his hands on her, unlacing her dress, baring her skin, sliding down her body… She snuck a glance at Jon. “I’d imagine it can’t be _all_ bad, though.” 

He averted his eyes to the floor as one of the Umber men yanked the material of Wynafryd’s underlying shift so low it nearly freed her breasts. “What do you mean?”

She felt her cheeks flush. Why did it seem awkward to address this with him when she had routinely begged to feel his lips on her, when she had touched him in an indecent manner, and she wished for him to do the same for her, all without hesitation? “I mean, many ladies grow to love their lords, do they not? How else do they produce four, five, six heirs…”

He blushed furiously, but he laughed, the sound warm and pleasant. “Fair enough.” 

The very last of the crowd left, the hall falling quiet at long last, and Jon offered her his hand. “Can I walk you back to your chambers, my lady?” 

“I told you, you don’t have to call me that when no one else is around.” She rolled her eyes. Jon always insisted on being proper when she most wanted him to be improper. “Are you sure you don’t wish to join them?” 

Jon followed her glance over to where two Manderly knights clutched each other in a drunken, off-tune rendition of “Two Hearts That Beat as One”. “No, I think I can live without that.” 

The halls of the keep were dimly lit, the raucous party continuing across the yard on the lower levels of the tower Robb and his bride were locked atop, the younger children and everyone else long since gone to sleep. 

Who would notice if she brought Jon back to her chambers, Sansa mused as they walked. Everyone not abed was likely too deep in their cups to pay them any mind anyhow… 

What could she say to assuage his honor and convince him? Would it be enough to ask for his help in lighting the fire? Could she get him to go as far as helping her untwist her hair from its elaborate knot, or assisting her out of her dress? 

As they neared her door and she made to ask if he wanted to step inside, she saw her maid duck in first, firewood in her arms to feed the flames and likely turn down her furs for the night. She might even wait up for Lady Sansa to return, to draw her a bath and gossip about the feast, whom all she had danced with, perhaps who had caught her eye…

Sansa was not in the mood to do any of those things. 

She knew she should have bid Jon good night, could have seen him off there. That was what a true lady would do, she knew, but she had acted the part of a lady all night and had grown tired of placing its demands above her wants. 

So instead she diverted Jon to the closest hall, a dead end that led only to a closet of sewing supplies she had no doubt anyone could possibly have any use of at this hour. 

She backed into the wall, pulled him to her chest, and pressed herself up against him as if that would somehow aid in making them invisible. 

“Sansa,” he whined. 

“Hush,” she said, listening for footsteps, or the rustle of skirts, but she heard only Jon’s panting breaths, felt the thump of his heart against her palms. 

“What if someone sees?” he hissed, his lips pressed to her ear. 

“Then I needed help fixing this.” She tore a rip down the center of the lace covering her chest, much like the men had undressed Wynafryd at the bedding. The irritating netting had scratched at her all night anyhow. 

It seemed to cause Jon great pain to force his eyes back to hers, and he raised his eyebrows for good measure once he did. “And you got me to help you fix it?”

“Fine. Then you can be the one who needs fixing.” She tugged the laces out of his shirt and ripped the fabric so a few buttons scattered. “Good enough?” 

Jon sighed. “Do you really think—”

“No,” she said, further tucking the errant lace out of the way. “I don’t want to think about this.” 

She watched Jon’s eyes flit from her chest back over her lips, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “What do you want, then?” 

She wished Jon would worry less about his honor and more about putting his lips on her. “Kiss me.” 

He obeyed, as he always eventually did, and Jon licked into her mouth. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t tried this before; Sansa loved working Jon to this point, where he forgot to be cautious with her, when he gave in to his desires. This time was different, though—the kisses he pressed against her were already needy, insistent, inevitable. She wondered if he had anticipated this moment all night as she did, thrust into close proximity but unable to do more than share demure touches and proper dances. 

She forced her body up against his, caught in between the roughness of the stone and the solid expanse of his muscle, compressing her breasts against the heat of his exposed chest. For all their kisses, there had never been one quite like this, where he seemed to forget his worry and reservations, where his hips pinned her to the wall, where she could feel him hard against her thigh. 

Jon slipped down her body, kissing her jaw, her neck, her collarbones, her chest just above the swell of her breasts, setting her aflame everywhere he lingered. She let go of him just long enough to deepen the tear in the bodice of her dress with a short yank, encouraging him to slide lower. 

She knew she shouldn’t want this. Merely kissing Jon had been one thing; even children wondered, children kissed, it was perfectly natural. Touching Jon, too, seemed like a harmless endeavor; he was, after all, rather different than her, so why should she not have wished to know more? Where had the harm been in that? 

The things she felt now, though, were dangerous. She recognized that. They were not naïve curiosities anymore, but something more, something desperate that compelled her, damned if she gave in and damned if she didn’t. 

“Can I try touching you?” Jon growled against her throat. 

She needn’t ask where or offer him a choice. “Please,” she nodded, practically panting with want, and helped him hitch up her skirts around her waist. 

He slid a hand up her leg until he reached the stretch of skin above her stocking, his touch light and slow, and when he reached the edges of her smallclothes, he pressed his thumb against her. She inhaled, her breath whistling through open lips. 

Jon jerked his hand away. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, no,” she said, sagging backward into the wall for support so she could push herself into his hand again. “No, it feels…”

Wanton? Wicked? Wondrous? Which was the right word to tell Jon? None of those seemed to entirely encapsulate the way she felt as he carefully pushed her smallclothes aside and let his fingers skim over her folds. She watched him, his eyes growing dark, his breath coming faster, and then he found it, the spot that she wondered why she hadn’t guided him to earlier; if she’d known he wanted to try touching her like this, she could have showed him moons ago… 

He stroked over it again, and Sansa gasped, muffling the sound against Jon’s shoulder. There was nothing strange about this feeling, nothing at all but pure pleasure, sharp, exquisite, and mind-bendingly sweet. 

She felt wetness gathering between her legs—was that good? Was it too much? It felt good… Jon pushed a finger into her and she felt, rather than heard, him groan, the sound deep in his throat, so it must have been… 

What if Jon didn’t offer to stop? She heard men could be that way. She found it equal parts terrifying and exhilarating that she didn’t want him to, that she wanted to feel more of him inside of her, that she wanted to try it all. 

“I want to try kissing you somewhere else,” he said, his voice low and rough, his cheeks reddening beneath his beard. 

She wasn’t sure what he meant, but all of Jon’s kisses had been perfectly pleasing so far, so she agreed. 

He sank to the floor, bending one knee as he hiked her skirts up higher. 

“Jon,” her voice threatened to rise above a panicky whisper. “What are you—” 

And then something warm and wet licked up her center, shocking her into a scandalized silence. It took her several long moments to process exactly how he intended to kiss her, a few more to realize that he was truly using his tongue to touch her in such an intimate way, and yet another to overcome the startling spike of straight satisfaction that ran through her and consider why, for all of her daydreams and nighttime fantasies of Jon, she had never before even fathomed something like this. 

How had she never known this existed? How could a secret of something so magnificent have escaped her? Certainly she’d known about some things, kissing and what husbands and their wives did in their marriage beds and how babes came into existence, but somehow all of her lessons on being a proper lady from her mother, Septa Mordane, and countless handmaidens omitted whatever this was. 

_Probably because this isn’t proper,_ some harried part of her brain fussed, and the voice was simply shushed with another spectacular swipe of his tongue.

Jon suddenly reemerged from her skirts. “Is this all—”

“Yes, it’s perfect,” Sansa breathed, not caring anymore if her gasps could be heard all the way down the hall. 

He licked his lips, and she bit down on her own bottom lip when she noticed they shined with something other than his spittle. “Are you—”

“Quite certain, yes,” she insisted. 

He nodded and disappeared again. 

Sansa knotted her hands in his hair, feeling faint as though she were taken by the best kind of fever, delirious and hot, the stone wall heated by the hot spring warm behind her and her skin flushed as she struggled to contain herself. The smooth velvet of his tongue warred with the scratch of his beard on her thighs; she never thought the roughness would have this effect, that it would stoke the odd thrill it was to be out in the hall, with Jon up her skirts.

She felt herself throb against his tongue. Was that supposed to happen? Or was that only her visceral reaction to him, like all of her others? Why was she wondering if that was normal, when none of this seemed to be?

Jon gently pressed his way inside of her again, stretching her open with his hand. Her damned skirts blocked the sight, but she was fairly certain this time he used two fingers, and in combination with the way his lips sucked at her, she didn’t think she’d ever experienced anything so decadent in her life. 

Wasn’t this supposed to hurt, she thought? Hadn’t they always told her that? She couldn’t imagine this being painful any more than she could picture Winterfell in the south or the Starks’ sigil as a sheep, it was so extraordinarily opposite, so wonderfully euphoric. 

His fingers curved, and that perilous feeling intensified. She was quite sure that if she didn’t let it wash over her, that if she tried to resist, it would indeed destroy her. 

She concentrated on the pressure of his tongue, feeling whatever this was build, this dangerous, wonderful thing. Kissing him, touching him through his clothes, thinking ever since then about how he felt beneath them, wondering how they would feel joined together by more than just their lips had all been a mere shadow of this… 

And when she let go, clenching against his mouth and around his fingers, heat winding its way through her every fiber, she knew this would be the first of many, many times she asked Jon to try this on her, and that she wanted to try it on him, too, to see what would happen, to make him tremble and leave him as spectacularly breathless as he had rendered her. 

Footsteps echoed down the corridor. 

Jon stopped and straightened, tugging down Sansa’s skirts as he failed to piece together his torn shirt, his wide eyes locked with hers. 

“Ned,” someone hissed, who sounded very much unlike but very much was certainly her mother. “Ned, stop being silly, someone might _see_ —”

Her father murmured an inaudible response, to which her mother issued a girlish giggle. “ _No,_ we are _not_ going to make another son to replace Robb…” 

Sansa pushed away from Jon and ran.


	4. Chapter 4

These sleepless nights were becoming far too common. 

Jon found his wakeful moments filled with indecent, lustful fantasies: Sansa welcoming him into her bath, Sansa sinking to her knees before him, Sansa stretched out on the furs, naked and inviting, in front of a roasting fire, but his room was dark and cold, the grate empty. Those were followed by bouts of fitful sleep plagued with images of Sansa watching as he burned at a stake, Robb plunging a dark blade into his heart and pulling it away, blood streaming down his body, their father unsheathing Ice… 

At first, Jon told himself he should have expected this moment to come. It was his bastard’s blood fueling him, his inherent nature taking over. And then he tried to convince himself it was simply Sansa’s extraordinary beauty, for she really was exceptional, and that no man in her presence could have stood a chance. But then again, Theon seemed to act around her just as he did any other girl, and Robb seemed unaffected. Finally he was left to accept that he was simply depraved, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it except wait for it to pass or let it consume him from the inside out.

The goings on of Winterfell had done little to distract him from his incessant inner turmoil. Sansa tried to keep the whispers from him, but Jon found it impossible to avoid the rumors of their father seeking the hand of some northern lord’s son or knight for her. Theon would be returning to Pyke in only a few moons’ time, and Robb confided that now he and Wynny, as he fondly called her, had moved past the initial introductory stage of their marriage, they had begun avidly trying to produce an heir. Jon himself started considering joining the Night’s Watch. He justified the decision to himself—after all, the Starks had manned the Wall for hundreds of years, so even if he wasn’t a Stark by name, at least he could be in practice. He knew why it truly appealed to him, though.

It all came back to Sansa. He couldn’t imagine sitting in Winterfell, watching her get married off to a strange man, sent away to a foreign place, to bear babes who didn’t have her shiny Tully red hair and bright blue eyes or the rugged brown-haired, grey-eyed look of the Starks. It had been torture enough watching her smiling and twirling in the arms of Brandon Tallhart and Rickard Ryswell and countless others with lands and titles to their names at Robb’s wedding feast while Jon stood by with a set jaw, knowing he could do nothing, that merely dancing song after song with her was risk enough. 

And yet he could not imagine moving away himself, learning to practice a trade, having a wife and family of his own, even if he thought his whole life that was all he’d ever wanted. Despite the twinge of jealousy he felt when he saw Robb and Wyn together, the prospect of kissing another girl, touching someone else, even coupling with anyone other than Sansa could not make him lust the way she did with only a coy look or gentle touch. 

He tried to forget her. He gave the excuse he had to polish his armor and sword the last time she approached him. He remembered her schedule now not so he could ensure they would cross paths as he had in the past, but rather so he could break his fast a bit earlier than her and eat his dinner alone later. He told himself it was for the best, that Sansa had enough to handle without their stolen moments, her time occupied by taking on more of the duties of the lady of Winterfell alongside her mother and spent showing Wyn around the keep. He even tried to distract himself with the other girls in Winterfell, including Jeyne Poole, whose Henry had been sent to take over the blacksmithing duties for the Glovers in Deepwood Motte. He forced images of Lady Catelyn’s pretty new maid, Theon’s latest love interest, anyone save Arya, Wynafyd, and Sansa into his mind when he wrapped his hand around his cock, but it was always her he saw. 

It was sinful, he knew. But even his father had sinned once, with his mother. And Robb, too, had admitted that despite the wit, kindness, and beauty of his lady wife, he sometimes still longed for a girl as shapely as Louisa, who’d left Winterfell for King’s Landing a year past, or as striking as Jocelyn in Wintertown. Jon only hoped he could keep his sin from tainting Sansa. 

He spent much time wondering about what kind of sickness this was, all for naught. What type of sickness felt as though it could only be cured by increased exposure to the very thing that caused it? Did he even want to be cured? Sometimes it felt almost as though he lived for the moments that drew him into close proximity of Sansa, the times he had excuse enough to talk to her, the days when he chanced to watch her from afar… 

The full onslaught of winter hadn’t helped, keeping him cooped up inside most days, unable to burn off excess energy riding in the woods or training for hours in the yard. His desire was like a hunger, except of the worst kind, because he suspected that even if somehow, some way, he tried more with her, it would only intensify. It had become increasingly difficult to control or to control himself at all around her, especially after Theon made a comment about Sansa’s ample bosom several weeks past, and Jon found himself brimming with rage. Jon thanked the gods Robb had gotten there first, delivering a swift punch to his gut in defense of his sister’s honor, because that was what good brothers did. Good brothers didn’t lust for their sisters, didn’t imagine their lips and hands on them, didn’t long to hear them gasping and moaning like Sansa had when he’d been beneath her skirts. 

Despite his most outlandish reveries, it was complete and utter folly to imagine taking Sansa as his wife. The bedding, he permitted himself to think about, in some of his baser moments, but in reality, in the world outside of his degenerate mind, it could never work. Even if he was permitted to take her hand under circumstances far beyond the reach of his imagination, even if they moved out of the North, away from anyone who knew them or anyone who ever heard their names, it would still be impossible. He tried to picture Sansa living in a tiny farmhouse, working out in the fields alongside him, sewing dresses and gowns for the nearest lady to supplement their income, without much success. No, that would never be a place for her. She deserved a castle, a keep of her own she could run as efficiently as she had learned in Winterfell, to be the lady that had the latest fashions designed for her rather than the other way around. 

If only he could tell the rest of his body to match the logic of his brain. 

The lock on his door scratched against the wood, and Jon sat upright. It had been a familiar sound, until a year or so ago, when Robb had moved across the yard to live with Wynafyd, leaving the bed across from him empty. He didn’t know who he was expecting—Robb, or maybe Father, almost anyone but a woman ensconced in the thickest fur coat he’d ever seen. 

The door creaked shut, the lock following with a metallic clang. He saw her remove her hood, the gleam of red hair unfurling brilliant even in the darkness, and he caught his breath. _Sansa._

How many times had he imagined, wished for, this moment? Touching himself with her name on his lips had been one benefit of having the chamber to himself, but he had never once thought his fervent version of some kind of perverse prayer would succeed in conjuring her out of thin air, as though summoned by the magic out of one of Old Nan’s stories… 

He pulled his own furs up to cover his bare chest, feeling exposed in comparison. 

“What are you doing here?” he demanded, half-certain she would fade away like an apparition once he confronted her. 

“Hi to you, too,” she whispered, still corporeal, still in his room, this time beside his bed. “Do you know how difficult it was to steal this key from Father’s solar and to sneak away with Theon and his mistresses wandering the halls?” 

“Why are you here?” he asked again, his heart starting to follow his brain’s stuttering. 

“I wanted to see you,” she said. “It’s been…”

“Awhile,” he finished for her. 

She removed her thick, fur overcoat to reveal only a thin night rail of light blue silk beneath. “Are you going to invite me in, Jon?” 

He knew it was a poor idea, that this could not end well because they would either do things they shouldn’t or he would suffer the agony of not doing them, and either way, she would have to leave eventually. But he could imagine how cold she must be wearing only that scrap of cloth that looked soft to touch but not very insulating, and he suddenly seemed far too warm beneath the furs of his bed, so he nodded and shifted over to leave her a space on the edge. 

“You don’t have to go all the way over there,” she said, folding her knees to her chest and pulling the furs over herself. 

He didn’t move, wondering if he could make himself forget she was beside him if he counted every stone brick in the wall and ceiling like Lady Catelyn always told Rickon to count to ten to forget his anger. “Why are you here?” 

She stayed silent. He found it more difficult to avoid looking at her now than all the other times in recent memory combined—when he saw her showing Wynafryd the godswood for the first time, when she’d spent a torturous dinner across from him on Robb’s nameday, sipping her wine and trying to catch his eye, when she’d passed him in the hallway only a few days since, a whirl of her skirts and completely alone for once. 

“Sansa?” When he finally allowed himself to glance over at her, he noticed her bottom lip trembling. “What’s wrong?” 

“Girls don’t get to do the same things as boys,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears. “It’s not fair.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, wholeheartedly wishing she didn’t let them spill. His hands already itched to find their way around her, to hold her to his chest, to stroke her hair until they dried. 

“I know you—you’ve been to Wintertown with Robb and Theon,” she said. “Cavorting with whores and who knows what else.” 

“Sansa, I haven’t been ‘cavorting with whores,’” he said, desperately trying to stop a smile from playing around his lips, the idea was so laughable. “You’re the only girl I’ve ever touched. I swear it.” 

She sniffled. “But I saw you leave with them, and when you came back… I heard Theon talking about where you’d been… in the tavern, and then after… and what had happened there…” 

He frowned. Unfortunately, he did remember the incident in question. “That happened moons ago. Right after Robb’s wedding.”

It had been Theon’s idea to go, since he said they hadn’t had a chance to properly see off Robb’s days of being unattached before the wedding with the Manderly host and those of all the lords in the North arriving in the preceding weeks. They stopped first at the Wintertown tavern, where Robb proceeded to down every drink—wine, ale, and unidentifiable murky grain liquid—Theon placed in front of him, and followed it up by admitting he had no clue what he was doing acting as future lord of Winterfell or accepting the fealty of men more grown than him or being with a girl like Wynafryd. Theon took it upon himself to find someone who could make him feel better, at the brothel, of course, and by the time they arrived there Robb digressed into a tearful state. Jon sat out with Robb in the antechamber, sipping ale to pass the time and to avoid any interested glances from the many girls while Theon took his turn, or what seemed like, to Jon, many turns. Then they made the harrowing trek back to Winterfell in what turned out to be the first major snow of winter, and only then Jon had appreciated the amount he’d drank, too, since he didn’t even seem to feel the cold until he stumbled into his chambers and somehow managed to build and light a fire to warm himself and Robb, who he didn’t think he could manage to heave all the way up to the top floor of his own tower, nor did he think Wynafryd would welcome in this condition. 

Sansa listened quietly as he told the story, and when he finished, he ended with, “Why are you asking about this now?” 

“I tried to ask you before,” she said, shaking her head so her long hair flowed down her back. “You seemed like you didn’t want to speak to me… I’m sorry if I upset you. I never wanted you to do anything you didn’t want to do. Are you angry with me?”

“Of course not,” he said. He didn’t know what he felt for Sansa or how to tell her, but it certainly was not anger. “I’m sorry if you thought I was cross with you.” 

“It’s all right.” She paused. “So you’ve never tried…?”

He didn’t need to ask what she meant this time. “No. You’re the only girl I can imagine…” He let his voice drift away, unsure of how she would feel about such a confession, or how he would even say such a thing. 

“Really?” She barely hesitated to smile before continuing. “I’ve thought about it, too. About trying it with you. Because I want to try it with you first.”

He sighed. He’d lived a life of denial, humbling himself, refusing to accept any good that came his way, because he felt as though he did not deserve it for myriad reasons. This, though, would be the most difficult of all to decline. 

She kept on, unaware of his internal strife: “Then you want to, right? Just to try. We can stop if you don’t like it, and I promise I’ll never ask you again.” 

He grimaced. It wasn’t that he didn’t know if he’d like it or not that was the problem, but rather what would happen when he inevitably discovered he quite did. “Sansa…”

“I’m nearly nine and ten, Jon,” she said, her voice strangled as though more tears might follow her admission. “I think I am old enough to choose for myself.” 

“I can’t…” He intended to say ‘ruin you,’ but that was so far from what he wanted to do to Sansa, he couldn’t bring himself to utter the words. He shook his head before the images clouded his mind and his good judgment. “You’re meant to marry some lord, and…”

“And what?” Sansa snapped. “And he’ll be filled with fury when he’s inside of me on our wedding night, and realizes there is nothing to break? Or he’ll pull out and notice no blood, and send me back to Winterfell? And then he’ll come for you and demand my maidenhead back?” 

Jon supposed not. 

“I don’t want to be with some old, stodgy lord,” Sansa said. 

“Father wouldn’t do that,” said Jon. “He’ll find you someone young and handsome, a knight, if you wish it…”

“And what if he is cruel? What if he cares more for ale and tavern wenches?” she said. “I don’t want that, Jon. I want you. I…”

His heart soared at the potential of her pause. He would take anything at all she thought of him, felt for him. 

“Care for you.” Almost as good as he wished. “Is that not enough?”

He didn’t know how to tell her he would never be enough for her, no matter what he felt or what she did, so instead he prolonged his suffering by looking at her blue eyes, waves of beautiful hair, pink lips that would never be his, always meant for someone else. 

“And what about for you, then? How can you take the vow to join the Night’s Watch if you haven’t even tried all there is to offer you away from the Wall?” 

It was a fair point, he had to admit. And it was true that having Sansa even once would probably be enough to sustain him for the rest of his days… even if she was the reason he was sent there in the first place. How insane did he have to be for him to be willing to risk life and limb for this? 

“I’ll understand, of course, if you wish for someone with more, um, experience,” she said, a flush he couldn’t ignore rising in her cheeks. 

“Do you not want the same?” he asked aloud, as his bewildered mind had wondered all along, why she wanted him to kiss, him to touch, him when she could have anyone. 

She shrugged, one thin strap of her night rail sliding off her shoulder. “I trust you.” 

“I… might hurt you. There might be blood,” he warned, not sure why he spoke as though this were to happen, a real possibility. The Sansa he had first tried kissing would have been squeamish about such things. 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m old enough to know life isn’t like in the songs, Jon.” 

He couldn’t ever remember hearing a song quite about that, but then again he’d spent most of the recent feasts and celebrations staring at Sansa rather than listening to the singers and their lyrics. 

Maybe it would be all right, he pondered, if he didn’t let himself spill. How could he promise that, though, when he didn’t know how it would feel, when it felt before as though he would spill at the mere touch of her hands, or simply by putting his hands and lips on her? 

“What if…” He let the rest of his words fade. 

“I know the way to Wintertown, too,” she said. 

His heartbeat quickened, his mind spinning. How could she sound so certain of this, of him? 

He watched, motionless, as Sansa unfolded herself, stretching out slowly, first her long legs alongside his, her graceful arms over her head, her back arching. He remembered the last time he had seen her in that pose, against the wall after Robb’s wedding feast, her body curved to fit her cunt against his mouth. She moved to sit astride him now, one leg lifted over his torso, his hips nestled between her thighs, her hands light against his chest, so unhurried he could have resisted at any point if he wanted, but he couldn’t make himself deny any longer…

It would be so easy to reach down, nudge her smallclothes aside, and sheath himself in her, his cock already hardening against the warmth between her legs. He knew this would hurt later, when the smell of her lingered in his bed, the image of her above him, even if they only made it this far, etched indelibly in his memory. 

“It’s cold in here,” she said, sitting up straighter so the furs fell away, running her hands up and down her arms. 

He, too, wished he’d had a fire lit, or a candle, anything so he could see her better, see her glow instead of reflected in the moonlight, but it didn’t matter. He could warm her like she’d done for him, inflaming him inside ever since that night she sat beside him in the godswood, when she leaned over and asked to feel his lips on hers. He reached up for her hands and gently pulled them away, lacing his fingers through hers as he placed them back on his chest. 

The other thin strap of her night rail slipped down her arm, the thin material barely clinging to her. She raised one pair of their intertwined hands to her chest and drew the silk the rest of the way downward so it pooled around her hips, the fabric, though warm from her body, feeling cool against his overheated skin. 

Her teats shone pale and perfect in the moonlight; how many times had he pictured them? She guided both his hands upward and slid her fingers from his, cupping them around her breasts instead, the peaks hardening against his palms. 

“Let me choose,” she said. “Let me pick you.” 

She twisted her hips and ground down over him and he flushed, his cock poking upward against his smallclothes, embarrassed for the hundred thousandth time of his body’s brazen betrayal. He thought of how she felt last time, soft and silky against his fingertips, and wondered if she felt the same inside now, felt the way he did for her, and he couldn’t find the words or willpower to deny anymore. 

“Can I…” he began, not even knowing where he wanted to start, what he really wanted to try, as long as it ended with him touching her. 

“Yes,” she said, “Anything you want to try, Jon. Yes.” 

He rolled her under him. It only took a second for his body to remember how good Sansa felt in his arms, and one more to realize this was real, and yet another to accept that this time they weren’t hiding around back of the stables or the broken tower, sneaking off into abandoned hallways or waiting until everyone left, that this time they were alone, in his bed, with quite literally almost nothing left between them. 

She arched beneath him and he ran his hands down her body, her skin even smoother than the silk night rail and smallclothes he rid her of and tossed away, until it was just her, finally, how he always dreamed, but even better, because he could feel her warmth around him, see the way she held his eyes to hers, hear her whisper his name in encouragement. 

He murmured all the things he wished to tell her before during their fleeting moments when he had to remain silent, how beautiful she looked, how perfect she felt, how much she meant to him. 

“Everything,” he breathed. “Sansa, this is everything to me. You’re everything.”

She held him tighter, her hands finding their way down his back, sliding over muscles usually sore from training that instead now sang beneath her caresses. He caught her lips with his, leaning into hot kisses as Sansa pressed her body to every juncture of his. Soon her tongue was in his mouth, gliding against his in welcome intrusion, and Jon wondered of all the moments wasted on worries, jealousies, and doubts, because this was the one he most wanted to cherish, her red hair fanned out against his pillows, her skin softer than the furs and feathers of the bed, the hitch of her breath more beautiful than any song. 

Sansa seemed as eager to touch him as he to her, and he conceded, letting her hands knot in his hair, slip down his chest, and eventually curl around his cock. 

He could feel himself already leaking, and he found himself strangely thankful his smallclothes still intervened between her hand and him. He couldn’t remember ever being this hard before in his life, not the night she first touched him through his clothes, not when he knelt beneath her skirt to kiss her the way he’d dreamed about ever since, certainly not any of the long nights he tried to lead on sleep by taking himself in hand with the memory of her in mind. 

She allowed him to slide through her fingers as he drew his lips down her throat, worried the spot just above her collarbone he’d learned she liked, and pressed a few fluttered kisses between her breasts before he sank lower. 

The first drag of his tongue over her slit made her suck in air, the second caused her to huff it all out, the third was accompanied by a moan, and after that, the point at which he found the small, sensitive spot where she seemed to most enjoy his attentions last time, he lost track. 

She tugged him back up by his hair after only a few short minutes. 

“You’re so sweet,” he said, kissing a meandering path along the flat expanse of her abdomen, his voice now a purr. “Even sweeter than that wine you gave me, do you remember?” 

She nodded. “Of course. What a fool I was before that night… before this night…”

“I’d never think you a fool,” he said, even as he felt one himself for wondering how to proceed. Had he used his mouth enough? Would she prefer more gentle touches with his hands? Maybe, if they laid a different way, she would be more comfortable? 

“I’m ready,” she breathed, seemingly in response to his unspoken questions.

He found it oddly comforting to realize in that second he did have a plan, after all, if this were ever to happen, one that involved him pleasuring her with his mouth and hands for hours until she relaxed, sated and thoroughly ravished, in his arms, and then and only then, when she begged him, he would allow himself to find his own release, easily sliding into her. He frowned. “Are you certain?” 

“Yes,” she said. “I already, um, I…” 

“You can tell me,” he prompted. 

“I may have already started this on my own,” she said, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and he felt his cock jump at the the image of what he thought Sansa intended beginning to form in his mind. 

“What do you mean?” 

“I touched myself, like when you did,” she said, sliding a hand over his and guiding it between her legs. 

“You did?” he said, mostly because he didn’t know what else to say, because his mind jammed with this new shocking, enthralling, arousing information. “Why?” 

She pushed his fingers down so they grazed against her, hot and slick. “Because I was thinking about you.” 

This had not been accounted for in his plan. 

“Except,” she continued, “When I imagined it, you weren’t wearing your smallclothes…” 

He extricated himself from the furs, stood before her, and pushed his single scrap of clothing off, her eyes following the bob of his cock at full mast. 

“And?” 

“And you were above me…” 

He settled back between her legs, a hand stalled on either side of her hips. “And then?” 

She locked her eyes with his. “And then you were inside me, your tongue in my mouth and your cock in my cunt, and I couldn’t tell where I stopped and you began…” 

If he hadn’t been already on his knees, then surely her description would have rendered him there.

“Sansa,” he said, willing his voice to stay steady rather than sinking to the low growl it automatically deepened into. “You can say no.” 

“No, I can’t,” she said resolutely, letting her gaze run down his body until it ended up back down between his legs. “Because this is what I want. I want to try this.” 

“I want you, too,” he said, wishing he had the words, the nerve to tell her all the ways, all the things he wanted to try not just here, but out in the world, where this could never be. 

“Do it,” she urged. “And don’t apologize.” 

He almost grinned, she anticipated him so well, but to do so would have meant losing his focus, and he couldn’t take that risk at such a perilous moment. 

Without taking his eyes off her, he positioned himself and pushed forward, sinking into her deliciously sweet heat. 

It wasn’t how he anticipated. As incomprehensibly good as she felt, he experienced no driving urge to instantly bury himself inside; in fact, she felt so good he thought he could have just stayed right there, partially sheathed forever, if she’d let him. He didn’t feel seized by some kind of madness, but rather adoration, every bit he entered her a gift to be cherished. She tightened around him, and he gently pressed onward, encouraged by her breathy sighs and the rub of her cheek against his, until the pressure gave way.

“Oh, Jon,” she said, and it was the most beautiful and erotic thing he’d ever heard, more fulfilling than any prayer he’d ever uttered, the furthest cry from the tepid flirtations of the girls in Wintertown. 

He swallowed her moan with a kiss and then another, one to match each unhurried slide out and slow thrust back in, driving deeper each turn. 

There was no slow erosion of his resolve this time, not like what had happened over the years since he first allowed himself to kiss her and take other liberties with her invitation. It happened all at once the moment he was fully inside her and his hips began to move seemingly of their own accord, his worries ebbing away in a sea of Sansa. 

He felt her teeth against his collarbone, a groan rumbling up from his throat, sweat slipping down his spine, but nothing felt better than Sansa entwined with him, her long legs wrapped around him, locked behind his back, holding him to her in silent affirmation. Sansa took his hand from where it tangled in her hair and guided it down between them, to touch the spot he’d discovered with his tongue last time. In a less urgent moment he might have asked how she tried it herself, alone, thinking of him… 

He’d been buried beneath her skirts last time, unable to watch her release even as he felt it, her grasping around his fingers, pulsing against his tongue, and he wanted to see her go over the edge. He opened his eyes and made himself watch as she came apart, her head thrown back, her lips open, and she squeezed along his length, her body tightening as she found her release around him. And then Sansa made a sound, nothing more than a breathy sigh followed by another soft gasp of his name, and he was undone. 

He held on for a mere moment longer, the last shred of rationality lingering in his brain reminding him to overcome his instinctive nature and pull out, spurting into his hand and against the smooth skin of her thigh.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she said, reaching down between her legs to touch the mess of his seed. Her words were almost the same as the pouty, petulant ones she’d used as a child, but there was none of that now, only want and consideration. “I wanted you to come inside me. I wanted to know what it feels like.” 

“I can’t try that with you, Sansa,” he shook his head. “I don’t dare. I shouldn’t have tried this just now.” 

At that he expected her to put on her clothes and slip away, but instead she moved closer and tucked herself beneath his arm, against him. 

“That’s all right,” she said. “Next time I won’t let you leave.” She followed it up with a wicked grin. 

“And how do you plan to do that?” 

Her nails lightly glided across his chest. “Well, you do have quite nice hair for my hands to knot in.” 

The corners of his mouth twitched. “And what if I cut it off?” 

“You wouldn’t.” She pressed a kiss to the base of his throat. “Besides, I still have my legs to wrap around you, too.” 

“And what if I break free of that?” He couldn’t imagine a reason he’d ever want to, but he couldn’t resist. 

“Well, if all else fails, I’ll start strengthening the new muscles I just discovered thanks to your cock.” 

He felt himself already half hard again at the mere thought.


	5. Epilogue

Sansa tried. 

She tried to enjoy her year in King’s Landing when her father was named Hand of the King. She tried to enjoy the extravagant tournaments, the fancy outfits, the whispers that perhaps someday Sansa herself would succeed Cersei as queen. 

She tried living at Riverrun with her mother after King Robert died and her grandfather became sick. She tried to distract herself from the mounting tensions with learning as much as she could about her Tully heritage and becoming acquainted with her relatives and her grandfather’s household. 

She tried hiding in the Vale, too, after war broke out. She tried spending a year betrothed to Harrold Hardyng, and then tried to conceal her relief when a knight rammed a spear through his throat in a jousting mishap. She tried to cope with the intensifying insanity of her Aunt Lysa, and then after her death, she tried to mother poor, helpless Sweetrobin the best she could and fend off the advances of Petyr Baelish. 

She tried not to wonder what had happened to Jon with the arrival of each piece of distressing news, first the death of Father, then the disappearance of Arya, the following departure of her mother when she left to join Robb’s camp, the destruction of Winterfell and Bran and Rickon along with it, and then the massacre at the Twins. Jon might very well have been all she had left of a life that no longer existed, and she tried to remind herself it didn’t matter what had become of him, that they could never be, that things would never be again as they had. 

Still, every time it snowed, she thought of him. 

 

\---------- 

 

Jon tried, too. 

He tried not to think of how he very well may never see Sansa again, or how envy burned inside him when he heard of her engagement. He tried not to think of her warmth during cold nights, her soft lips, her breathy sighs when he took himself in hand. He tried not to dwell on how the blue winter roses he saw growing out of chinks in the Wall nearly matched her eyes, or how just imagining her laugh made him feel warmer than even the strongest rays of winter sun this far North. 

Those moments, though, were dwarfed by the times he spent longing for the moments they shared. 

He tried to think of her when he thought about his family, their faces, what they looked like now after years spent away. Whenever he received news of yet another disappearance or of their ruinous fates, he tried to think of how things might be different had he never left Winterfell along with the rest of them, how it would have been better to have stayed there together than fractured apart. He tried to think of her when trudging through the snow on long rangings beyond the Wall, of how he had to make it, because she might, in a pipe dream, an utter impossibility, be waiting for him back at Castle Black. 

When he collapsed in the snow, felled by the steel of his Brothers, he never knew whether the last flashes of red he saw were the fires he knew he deserved to burn in, the flames of the Red God, or simply her flowing hair as he most loved to see it. 

 

\----------

 

She saw him the moment the doors to the courtyard of Winterfell opened. 

Before Sansa knew what she was doing, she had already jumped off her horse and started to run into Jon’s waiting arms. She didn’t hear Brienne call her name behind her, she didn’t care who saw, if they would wonder, or if she violated the ladylike decorum she strived most of her life to keep up. None of that mattered. 

“I tried,” she sobbed, her tears mingling with the snowflakes melting in his hair. “I tried.” 

“I know,” he said, hugging her to him in a way that made her feel truly home. “I know.” 

They didn’t make love that night, or the one after, or for weeks. Sansa maintained an appropriate distance, treading carefully around Jon. She knew he was not the same man who she’d known before; she had heard the rumors, heard enough to know Jon had suffered during his time in the Night’s Watch. She could see it in his eyes, too, how he was haunted by what had happened both at the Wall and to Winterfell in their absence. 

Slowly, they rebuilt Winterfell on the outside and their relationship behind closed doors. She cried when he showed her his scars, seven angry marks across his chest and torso; he looked murderous when she told him of Joffrey and Harry, of the war the Lannisters waged against them, of what she knew of their family, missing or otherwise. They spent late nights in front of the fire, talking of everything, sharing ale and wine, reminiscing and wondering. 

On one such night, Jon cleared his throat, gazing into the flames as he seemed to drag up his courage and the words that followed from deep within. “Do you still trust me?”

She looked down at the cup in her hand. It was filled with a heavy red now, the sweet Arbor gold long since run out, along with much of their food stores from the infiltration of the Boltons. “Yes, of course.”

“Do you still care for me?”

“More than anyone.” She frowned. “Why?” 

“I miss you, Sansa.” She suspected he didn’t do it on purpose, but his voice slipped into the low, rumbling register she could never resist. “I miss us.” 

She met his eyes, reflected dark and wide in the firelight. She had missed him in such a way, too. She heard rumors of that as well, that his love for the wildlings had gone beyond begrudging respect, that he had loved some of their women as she thought he once loved her. 

She stood up, abandoning her chair and cup, and slowly sauntered over to him. “You know, there’s one thing I never got to try.” 

“Yeah?” He looked up at her with the heat and reverence she’d drudged up from her memory all too often over the past few years. 

“Yeah.” She sank to her knees, pushed his legs apart, undid his laces, and took him in her mouth. 

Then, when he claimed he could no longer stand her lips around his cock, she climbed atop him, and after that night, things continued as though they never left. 

 

\---------- 

 

Jon retreated to the godswood the morning he received the letter from the South. He crumpled the parchment in his hand, this message from Daenerys Targaryen, the Dragon Queen—his aunt—if she was to be believed. 

But why would she lie? Why would she invent a tale that provided him with an even better claim to the Iron Throne she so desperately sought herself? 

Somehow, now that he stared into the frozen face of the old heart tree, he knew. 

All of the northern lords and his advisors stayed away, leaving him to be, all save Sansa. He held her against his chest—his cousin, the last true heir to Winterfell. 

“What are we supposed to do with this?” he said, trying to keep the anger and bitter tears out of his voice. “How can I lead a people who aren’t even mine? How can I keep a title I don’t deserve?”

“We could try, Jon,” she said, her voice a balm to his ire and confusion. “That’s all we’ve ever done. It’s all we can do.” 

 

\----------

 

It was Sansa who first voiced the idea. 

Something small, something private would suffice. There would be no need for months of planning or feasts or dancing like for Robb and Wynafryd. What would the point be to waste such extravagance when people were starving? And who could rightfully question the King anyhow? 

Jon denied and declined until he was forced to admit her arguments made sense. Their marriage would provide Jon with an irrefutable tether to House Stark. And it would give Jon everything he always wanted—a real name, Winterfell, a family of his own. 

So the arrangements were made, and in the godswood, in front of the old gods and their closest confidants, Sansa formally gave Jon his title, her name, herself.

 

\----------

 

Mere moons after Sansa wed Jon, winter began to wane. 

Sansa didn’t know if this fact had brightened her mood, or if it could more be attributed to how all of the northern lords had issued recognition and acceptance of their marriage. Either way, she found herself more hopeful and buoyant than she could remember in years, or possibly ever. She also suspected, though, that perhaps it had less to do with the improving weather or the good standing of Winterfell’s matters and more to do with Jon. 

When she thought back to the months that passed since their wedding, sometimes Sansa wondered how they managed to accomplish all that they had with the amount of time they seemed to spend abed. 

Sansa possessed no dearth of things she wished to try in their marriage bed, some overheard from the serving girls in the kitchens or the wildlings who now camped near Winterfell, other ideas all her own, but either way Jon seemed willing to try anything she desired. 

Soon more than just curiosity forced them to be inventive. Sansa’s growing belly made some positions more comfortable than others, yet she delighted in still trying new ones, her need for Jon somehow now intensified rather than sated. 

In regards to her husband, she didn’t think such a limit could possibly exist. 

 

\----------

 

Jon squeezed his eyes shut and tried to ignore the morning sunlight piercing through the open window. It was more difficult to remain oblivious to the patter of little feet on the wooden floor, Ghost’s playful growl, and a resulting happy squeal. 

“Shh, Neddy,” Sansa hissed from across the room. She must have been sitting by the window with little Lyanna in her lap. 

He imagined how they must look, Sansa’s brilliant red hair glowing copper in the sun, her hands full with trying to get a squirming Lyanna to sit still long enough so she could pin up her curly brown hair, a task made more difficult now that Sansa was with child again. Jon would have been thrilled regardless, as long as Sansa and the child were healthy, but he couldn’t help but wish for another girl, close in age to Lyanna, with Sansa’s red hair and bright blue eyes. 

He opened his eyes just the slightest bit to watch the scene, and he tried to remember if he’d ever been happier.


End file.
